A fireplace in which the wrought-iron fixtures are eminently in keeping. Shown at either side are fire sets also in suitable style, which cost $9 and 
$11, respectively 
Fireplace Fixtures 
INTERESTING ARTICLES FOR USE ABOUT THE FIREPLACE WHICH ARE PRACTICAL AND 
AT THE SAME TIME DECORATIVE HELPS TO THE ATTRACTIVENESS OF THE HEARTH 
by Jonathan A. Rawson, Jr. 
Photographs by Mary H. Northern! and others 
J UST as the fireplace itself claims and 
receives credit for combining in the 
largest degree the attributes of ornamen¬ 
tation and utility, so in equal measure are 
each of its special fittings and furnishings 
entitled to distinction of the same sort. 
Itself a decorative feature of a room and 
an eminently useful and comfort-giving 
one at that, it has a distinctive group of 
furnishings all its own, numbering not 
less than seventeen. Each of these articles 
was first made for practical purposes and 
became decorative later. No fireplace re¬ 
quires all of them to insure its service¬ 
ability, and, in fact, any hearth with so 
lavish an equipment would in these days 
of simplicity be sadly overdressed, like the 
shelf or table crowded to its utmost ca¬ 
pacity with bric-a-brac of all sorts and con¬ 
ditions. Of the seventeen pieces, several are designed to do the 
same work in different ways, like the andirons and the basket 
grate, but even these are often combined with pleasing effect, the 
basket resting upon the rear extension of the irons behind 
the posts. 
The fireplace should not be denied its own particular equipment. 
It is so much easier to have all the things right at hand, and then 
when to their handiness are added their decorative talents and 
their intimate memories of the past, their case is complete and 
their title established to places of honor and distinction in the best 
room in the house. The fireplace itself re¬ 
quires no champion or defender. Its sub¬ 
ordination to the stove and the furnace as 
a heating power regardless of its mission 
as their occasional auxiliary, can never ac¬ 
complish its banishment. On the contrary, 
it is nowadays often the axis on which the 
entire decorative system of a room or a 
house revolves, and we would almost as 
willingly plan a room without a window 
as an entire house without at least one fire¬ 
place. And as the fireplace is therefore 
bound to survive, its furnishings are bound 
to survive with it and retain with it the 
best traditions and associations of the early 
days. They shared the obscurity of the 
fireplace during its dark ages that followed 
the arrival of the first specimens of mod¬ 
ern heating and cooking appliances, but 
there is no longer the danger that they will ever become obsolete 
or that in years to come they will be found only in the exhibition 
halls of the historical museums. 
Fireplace furnishings defy classification. They can only be 
enumerated and even then it is not worth while to attempt their 
listing in the order of their importance, except the andirons which 
are first and foremost by every consideration. As the fireplace is 
the dominating presence of the well planned room, so the and¬ 
irons are the presiding geniuses of the well furnished fireplace. 
The mantel, its shelf, the facing, the hearth, the underfire and the 
These brush steel andirons, of an English 
type, hold a useful poker on brackets 
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